Perl is a very powerful tool for Oracle database administrators, but too few DBAs realize how helpful Perl can be in managing, monitoring, and tuning Oracle databases. Whether you're responsible for Oracle9i, Oracle8i, or earlier databases, you'll find Perl an invaluable addition to your database administration arsenal.You don't need to be a Perl expert to use the excellent applications and scripts described in Perl for Oracle DBAs. The book explains what you need to know about Perl, provides a wealth of ready-to-use scripts developed especially for Oracle DBAs, and suggests many resources for further exploration. The book covers:

The Perl language -- an introduction to Perl, its rich history and culture, and its extensive text processing and data transformation capabilities.

Andy Duncan

Andy Duncan is the coauthor of Oracle & Open Source (O'Reilly, 2001), as well as Perl for Oracle DBAs (O'Reilly, 2002). The first book arose after Andy's creation, in 1998, of the Orac Perl/Tk tool for Oracle DBAs. Since then, he has worked mainly as an independent development and DBA consultant, and has counted both Oracle Corporation and Sun Microsystems among his long-term clients. In addition to performing Oracle, Perl, and Java consultancy work, Andy teaches as a senior instructor for Learning Tree International, covering both introductory and advanced Perl courses. He lives in Oxfordshire, England.

Jared Still

Jared Still has been an Oracle DBA in health insurance and manufacturing environments since 1994 (and version 7.0.13 of Oracle). He first began dabbling with Perl in 1993 and it was love at first sight. Perl became an integral part of his Oracle toolkit when it was used to rapidly prototype and implement complex reporting based on data in Oracle databases. Jared has been working with databases of various ilks since 1988, and along the way has also worked as a Unix system administrator. When not riding herd on the databases at the OK Corral, he likes to spend time tinkering on his car, fly fishing, or sitting on the deck in the backyard at his home doing absolutely nothing. He can be reached at jkstill@cybcon.com.

Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animals on the cover of Perl for Oracle DBAs are thread-winged lacewings. Lacewings can be found all over the world, primarily in warmer climates. They live mostly in sheltered, sandy areas such as wooded dunes, forest floors, and riverbanks, until they reach adult form, at which time their wings enable them to roam more freely.In their larvae state, lacewings prey voraciously on such unsuspecting victims as aphids, mites, and scale insects. They hide under pieces of wood or debris, wait for insects to pass, then attack with their pincer-like mandibles.Lacewings undergo full metamorphosis throughout their lives. The adult form is characterized by two sets of wings, a long, slender abdomen, and clubbed antennae. Lacewings are one type of many nerve-winged insects because of the intricate pattern of lines (nerves) running through their transparent wings. Darren Kelly was the production editor for Perl for Oracle DBAs. Nancy Crumpton provided production services and wrote the index. Jan Fehler was the copyeditor. Tatiana Apandi Diaz and Claire Cloutier provided quality control.Emma Colby designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from The Riverside Natural History: Volume 2. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using Adobe's ITC Garamond font.David Futato designed the interior layout. This book was converted to FrameMaker 5.5.6 with a format conversion tool created by Erik Ray, Jason McIntosh, Neil Walls, and Mike Sierra that uses Perl and XML technologies. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is LucasFont's TheSans Mono Condensed. The illustrations that appear in the book were produced by Robert Romano and Jessamyn Read using Macromedia FreeHand 9 and Adobe Photoshop 6. The tip and warning icons were drawn by Christopher Bing. This colophon was written by Linley Dolby.

There are many problems that Perl solves best. There are many problems that Oracle database solves best. The complementary nature of Perl and Oracle provides an efficient and real life solution to many business problems.

This book addresses this synergy and demostrates some of the remarkable linkages between Perl and Oracle. The presentation is not for a beginner in either Perl or Oracle. The presentation aims for DBAs and network administrators.

I want to strongly recommend the book "Perl for Oracle DBA" authored by Andy Duncan & Jared Still.

I've been a DBA for around 7 years & have been doing Perl for longer than that. The code and examples in this book will be put to good use here; as soon as I get some time to put them into production. I even learn some new Perl coding techniques.

Over time, as we develop systems, cut code, administer data bases and perform myriad other tasks, we tend to build up a 'kit bag' of useful tricks, code snippets and techniques. This book makes a welcome contribution with its numerous code examples and clear explanations.

Although, as the title suggests, this is aimed primarily at Oracle administrators, there is much here for those with more than a passing interest in the rich text-processing language that is Perl.

With library modules also available for Sysbase and MySQL, for example, connections across disparate databases are a simple matter of appropriate API calls.

Indeed, in the excellent appendices, there is a code example showing simultaneous connections to both an Oracle and a MySQL database and how to extract and process data between them using Perl code and embedded SQL. The ability to do this easily and efficiently without resorting to dump and re-loads using ASCII flat files was a small revelation.

With their clear real-world approach, incisive and, often witty, explanations and observations, the enthusiasm of the authors for their subject is clear.

This book is not only a boon to data base administrators but should also prove to be very useful to those who simply want to learn more about the power of Perl.

There's no doubt that there are plenty of books for the Oracle DBA covering areas like maintenance, tuning, and backup and recovery strategies. Likewise, Perl books abound. Strangely enough, there's almost nothing on harnessing the power of these two technologies together. Decartes and Bunce's "Perl DBI" goes some of the way, but its focus is on getting Perl to talk to databases in general.

"Perl for Oracle DBAs," however, aims to fill the gap, and is broad-ranging and eclectic in its sweep. It covers the necessary tasks of installing Perl and the database interface, but also shows you how to call Perl from database stored procedures. Oracle::OCI provides a lower-level alternative to the standard DBI interface, and a higher-level option for C coders.

The authors direct the reader to a number of Perl GUI and Web tools that will make the DBA's life easier, but the unique contribution is their own Oracle DBA toolkit. Modules for mundane tasks such as user setup and real-time alert log monitoring are provided. Other contributions include a password server and client, and a repository for database changes and SQL execution plans. And, as with all good Perl code, you can build on top of the toolkit and extend it. This book has much to offer the neophyte and the expert. Highly recommended.

The Orange color of the O'Reilly Oracle range is starting to dominate my bookshelf now and Perl for Oracle DBAs is a welcome addition.

Although I'd say probably not ideal for a complete Perl beginner (where "Learning Perl" would be a good place to start) any DBA with some knowledge of Perl could save hours on getting up to speed on all the Perl Tools and packages available and finding the one most useful for their needs. There really is a wealth of information here. I can't imagine there is anything on Perl and Oracle that is not in here.

The chapter on Oracle::OCI alone was exactly what I required beforehand - and I can now see dozens of other different ways to do the same project.

Ever since I first heard of (and pre-ordered!) this book, I've been anxiously awaiting its arrival. I received it a few days ago and wondered where all the Perl is.

At first glance, I was disappointed that the book does not begin with an introduction to perl. After all, this book is titled 'Perl for Oracle DBA's' and not '3rd Party Perl Applications for Oracle DBAs.' The Perl language has been relegated to an Appendex in the book.

To add further disappointment, I am having difficulty getting examples in the book to run properly.

The first pitfall (thankfully the first example of connecting with DBD::Oracle worked!) was the example on page 69-70. There is no code in step 5. After trying the next example, I was fortunate enough to realize that it was missing a simple MainLoop();. Not too bad but we're only on the second code example in the book.

The next script, WhatIsTheTime.pl (Page 71) wouldn't run until I removed the use strict line-it complained about the line 'my oracleTime;'. I dont remember the reason, but after much frustration and experimentation, I got it to work.

Finally nothing that I (or my co-workers) could do would get Oracle_objects.pl (Page 116-117) to run. Being a Perl rookie, I couldn't figure out why the chart wouldn't come up in my browser. However, in the DDL/DML that allegedly populates the table for bar chart, you create a table called bars with two fields (object_type and object_count), but select barchart from the table, and filter bars by WIDTH, HEIGHT, 3-D, X-ORIENT, and TITLE.

For my $44.95, it's not unreasonable to expect working examples of such a promising technology.

I'm only on page 130 of the book but I am incredibly disappointed. I was looking for an excellent perl tutorial/companion for Oracle DBAs in the same vein as the excellent 'Unix for Oracle DBAs Pocket Reference'. Hopefully a revised version will be release soon, at no cost.